Tobias turned back to his computer and began inputting commands into it. Moments before King had burst into the control room, he and his team had written a work-around program which would enable them to bring the accelerator online while there were people inside it. Now, he quickly began disengaging one of the other failsafe systems and recalculated the temporal destination. Streams of data waltzed across his screen, converging lines indicating the approximate tachyon requirement versus the point in time desired.
Eventually, he announced, “I’m ready.” He barked commands at the technicians. One of them began operating a joystick and, in response, King saw through the transparent partition one of the robotic arms began to move.
“Closing radiation screen,” the technician controlling the arm announced and in response a thick sheet of lead began to drop in front of the giant window to protect the control room’s inhabitants from the tachyon radiation. King’s eyes switched over to a computer monitor which played streaming video from inside the chamber. With shocking dexterity, the robotic arm opened a lead case, reached inside and extracted the Moon Mask.
Welded carefully together, after many thousands of years, the Moon Mask was now whole and complete. All the facades that had been added to it by ancient civilisations had been cut away and now, what King stared at was what had been carved by the hand of some sophisticated artist from a civilisation that had no name official name.
“I’m moving the mask into the accelerator tube now,” the technician announced and, sure enough, the robotic arm locked the mask into place in the centre of the cone.
“Temporal destination set,” Tobias announced. He glanced ruefully at King. “As near as possible, at any rate.” He paused. “Once we bring the particle accelerator online it will pick up the tachyons and hurl them at a speed many times faster than the speed of light. The effect will be transmitted via nano-filaments to the entire ship, creating a . . . bubble, for want of a better term, around us.” His eyes were harsh and serious. He glanced at King’s gun. “This is your last chance to-”
“Do it,” he cut him off without any hesitation.
I’m coming Sid, he thought triumphantly.
USS George Washington,
Pacific Ocean
“Admiral!”
“I see it,” Harriman cut the young man off as he gazed in a mixture of awe, wonder and dread across the stormy ocean, beyond the burning oil slicks of downed planes, to where the Eldridge lay.
An eerie green mist slowly seemed to envelop her. At first he thought it was his eyes, tired and bleary, but another young sailor, a woman, called out; “There is some sort of massive energy spike emanating from the Eldridge.”
What the devil are they up to? Harriman wondered. In all his years in the navy he had seen many things which had never been explained to him. He’d heard many crack-pot theories and he’d always argued in the defence of the navy. But now, all the conspiracy theorists, all the Area 51 nutters’ and the JFK fanatics’ arguments seemed somehow justified.
“Oh my god, they’re making a run at the Eldridge!”
Whoever had the keen eyes wasn’t wrong. Sure enough, Harriman felt nausea rise in his throat as his eyes zeroed in on the Chinese jet which had broken away from its pursuers. Evidently, the pilot had seen the green mist too and knew that this thing, whatever it was, was reaching its climax.
The jet shot straight towards the Eldridge’s tower.
USS Eldridge,
Pacific Ocean
Langley’s hands flew across the keyboard of his laptop. A trailing wire hooked it up to the Eldridge’s computer and he saw the enormous power spike indicated on the screen a moment before a strange queasiness overcame him.
For a moment, it seemed as if the world around him wobbled, but then the sharp contours of the bridge re-sharpened.
He quickly searched through the computer’s inventory until he found what he needed.
The Eldridge’s self-destruct program.
“I should have done this a long time ago!” Gibbs snarled, his face twisted in anger.
Moments ago, a pulsing red light had shot down the length of the particle accelerator, then another and another until they were coming fast and steady as the technology catapulted invisible particles, tachyons, at awesome speed.
But Gibbs had forgotten about the danger to himself, both from the radiation and from any other potential side effects of the experiment. He remembered seeing photographs of men embedded inside solid bulkheads following the original attempt well over half a century ago. But right now, he didn’t care about any of that. Not the Project, not the ship, not even his life.
He finally had the bastard who had betrayed him and his men all those years ago, right where he wanted him.
Tobias watched the graph on his computer screen as the elaborate matrixes run by the quantum computer turned themselves into information he could comprehend.
Cut down to its basics, the three twisting, undulating lines on the screen indicated the tachyon energy level required to begin the time displacement process in blue, the level needed to achieve the target temporal destination in green, and the current energy level in red.
In 1942, with a single piece of the mask, the energy level had spiked, for an instant, over the blue line. The result had been a fraction of a second’s voyage into the future, the first known successful time travel experiment, no matter how macabre the results. Then, decades before nano-filaments had even been postulated, different sections of the ship, and different members of the crew, had, for that fraction of a second, existed out of phase with one another. When they returned to the same point in space-time some of them had done so literally, fusing one to the other. Today, the nano-filaments, superconductive microscopic fibres threaded throughout the ship, kept the entire vessel and everything in it wrapped together in its own ‘bubble’.
“This isn’t right,” Tobias mumbled.
“What?” King demanded. “What’s wrong?” He felt a wave of dizziness, one of the effects of the space-time continuum beginning to shift around them.
Tobias moved aside and indicated the screen. “The tachyon energy levels are taking far too long to reach the necessary intensity. In 1941, with only one piece of the mask, therefore logically less tachyons, they had broken the blue line by now.”
“What are you saying?” King felt anger rising. He was so close, yet so far.
“Doctor,” one of the technicians pointed out. “Energy levels are flat lining.”
“What do you mean they’re flat lining?” King demanded.
“They’re levelling out,” Tobias explained. He stared at the screen then back at King. “We don’t have enough energy to break the time barrier, let alone to travel back two weeks into the past.”
“But you’ve got the complete mask now,” King accused. “I don’t understand.”
“I do,” a new voice entered the discussion.
King spun around to the sound of the voice.
“Nadia!”
Another blow came and Raine felt his body go numb. He wondered if he had damaged his spine when he struck the safety banister, or suffered brain damage perhaps.
“You’re a traitor, Raine!” Gibbs spat. Illuminated in the hellish red glow of the pulsing particle accelerator, his puckered and pock-marked face covered with blood, he looked like the son of Lucifer, come to wreak havoc upon the earth.
Another blow, then another. “You’re a traitor to your country!” Another punch. “A traitor to your men!” Another blow. “And a traitor to yourself!”
Seconds had passed since the power spike had arced, since the eerie mists of time had quite literally begun to envelop the Eldridge, but for Alex Langley it felt like an eternity.
He broke into the encrypted computer program and uploaded a virus which smashed through the firewall and gave him access to the self-destruct program. He wondered how long he had, how long they all had, before the time travel process truly bega
n.
The command prompt page opened with agonising slowness, but Langley’s fingers entered the command in seconds, his fist flew down to smash the ENTER button and blow out the ship’s hull, dragging her to the deepest, darkest place on earth.
But in his haste he had failed to notice the screaming of jet engines a fraction of a second before the bridge blew apart around him in a hailstorm of fire and spinning glass, metal and jagged debris. He screamed in agony as the fire engulfed him, as shards of rubble bit into his flesh, but even as the force of the impact blasted him like a doll across the bridge, he scrambled for the ENTER button, his index finger falling just shy.
And then, a giant ball of searing, roiling flame pluming towards him on a cushion of jet fuel, Alexander Langley screamed as his world went black.
“No,” Raine snarled, seconds before the Chinese kamikaze struck the ship. “I’m not a traitor to myself, Gibbs. You are!”
With that, he forced his good arm into action and grasped Gibbs’ fist inches before impact. The move lanced new fire through his impaled shoulder but he fought through it and pushed back, slamming Gibbs into the safety banister behind.
The jet struck!
The explosion rocked the ship as the awesome impact shattered the hull, igniting fuel lines. The enormous plume of fire washed below decks, racing in a flash of light through the corridors, incinerating any hapless sailor in its path.
Then, like some serpent released from the gates of hell, the wall of flame whooshed down the corridor towards the access door to the accelerator, churned down the tunnel and spewed forth from the remnants of the hatch Raine had blown apart. It slammed into the catwalk, the force crushing metal, the heat melting it. The intense heat slammed into Raine and Gibbs like a sledgehammer. Raine felt his hair singing, his skin blistering. Gibbs screamed as, on his feet, the force picked him up and swept him along the catwalk. He reached out and grasped a superheated railing, his flesh adhering to it, then slumped to the deck.
The intensity of the blast also slammed into the control room. King had been about to hurl himself at Nadia, regardless of the rifles pointed at him, but the explosion knocked them all from their feet. The lights flashed, flickered then died. Computers exploded, glass shattered. There was screaming. There was thunderous noise. There was pain and blistering heat.
And then there was silence. The heat diminished, the action died away to stillness. Utter silence.
It hung in the darkness for long seconds, a great gnawing predator which fed on the last reserves of King’s courage. Exhausted and defeated, his plan to save Sid now lost, Benjamin King broke down in the darkness and began to cry.
Then, as the silence felt like it was about to stretch into infinity, a great wrenching sound of tortured metal screeched through the chasm of the Eldridge’s belly. The catwalk, hanging on by severed tendons of melted cables, pulled away from the bulkhead and began to plummet into the abyss.
61:
On the Catwalk
USS Eldridge,
Pacific Ocean
Nathan Raine leapt into action!
The catwalk dropped away beneath him, folding inwards on itself like a pack of cards. It had torn completely away from the access hatch and so he ran towards its fixed end, tethered to the hull above the control room.
His body screamed at him. Gibbs’ knife was still lodged deep in his shoulder, his hair had matted under the heat. His skin was red raw with blisters. His lungs ached and he hacked as he ran. But, so long as he was alive, he had vowed long ago, he wouldn’t give in. He would keep on running!
The catwalk dropped suddenly from under him. He fell to his hands and knees and felt himself roll towards the edge. He reached out, grasped the tortured metal banister, now twisted and obscure-
A boot slammed into his fingers, crushing them. He instinctively released his grip and felt himself slide back. The catwalk, suspended by a handful of supports from above and tethered above the control room, was collapsing one section at a time. Bits of it broke off and crashed to the deck far below, but most of it remained in one long piece, its own weight working against it and wrenching one support out at a time.
He dug his fingers into the grating and halted his descent with an agonising jolt to his shoulder. He glanced up and saw Gibbs, his own arms wrapped around the safety banister.
Raine had still been lying on the catwalk when the fireball had hit, but Gibbs, standing, had taken the brunt of it. Charred flesh hung from his scalp. One eye was shut and the skin around it looked as though it had melted. The hair on his head had seared into one knot of nylon. By all rights, the man should have been dead, but he clung onto life for the sole purpose of ensuring that if he was to die, then Nathan Raine was going with him. The crazed glint to his one open eye told Raine that there would be no reasoning with the man.
Another loud tear of metal wrenching from its socket and the catwalk lurched again! Raine and Gibbs dropped. O’Rourke’s body was jolted free of its perch, eyes wide with the shock of death, skin scarred and disfigured. It rolled passed Raine and tumbled, along with clattering debris, off the catwalk.
The sight filled Raine with a surge of anger which he transmuted into energy and hurled himself up at Gibbs. He slammed a fist into his charred flesh and the soldier wobbled back on his perch. For a moment, Raine thought he was going to topple back but he had no such luck. He launched himself at Raine and threw a punch which connected with his jaw. He almost lost his hold on the banister but swung himself flat against the grating once more.
Another support gave out, this time ripping chunks of metal down, which impacted the catwalk, wrenching yet another support free. It bent beneath Raine, arching sharply down. The climb up was now more exaggerated, more difficult, and he struggled to remain clinging to it.
With Gibbs in an elevated position, Raine knew he wouldn’t get passed him. Instead, clenching his teeth at the pain in his shoulder, he swung under the safety banister, now hanging almost vertically, and began to climb it like a ladder.
Gibbs realised what he was doing. “No!” he screamed at him and thrust himself across the gap. He slammed bodily into Raine and the weakened barrier tore free under the impact. Raine reached out, grasped the catwalk proper and rolled onto it just as the railing tumbled away.
Another support strut broke free and this time the jarring was enough to rip an enormous section of the bending catwalk free. It too tumbled, crashing to the deck.
Raine scrambled up, now slightly above Gibbs’ position. Gibbs threw himself at his legs, attempting to wrench him off the walkway but Raine kicked back, smashing his boot into the raw flesh of the other man’s face. Gibbs staggered, giving Raine the opportunity he needed to clamber onto the next section of the catwalk. The support strut above him still held, the metal walkway, though unstable, was horizontal once more, and Raine pushed up onto his feet and sprinted down it.
“No!” Gibbs screamed at his fleeing form. He hauled himself up and darted after him, the sudden impact ripping another support free, then another and another.
This was it, Raine knew. The entire thing was coming down!
He ran faster, his legs pounding against the metal walkway, Gibbs hot on his heels. Behind them both, the catwalk wrenched and tore and crashed to the deck far below. It shuddered and shook under their every footstep, the rate of destruction increasing as they neared the far bulkhead. The control room lay below them, the twisted ladder only yards away. But then Raine saw the metal bolts affixing the catwalk to the walkway pull free under the stress.
On instinct, he threw himself over the safety barrier and dropped through the cavernous belly of the Eldridge. Above him, the catwalk’s final supports gave out and the entire structure dropped, metal debris raining down around him.
He hit the roof of the control room feet first, the impact jarring his spine. He rolled out of it and almost into one of the circular recesses which pitted the roof. The suction of air from the blur of the fan almost
dragged him in.
He remembered seeing the fans on the Eldridge’s schematics. The enormous computer servers required for the quantum computers, housed in a line to either side of the control room, grew extremely hot when worked, requiring an extensive cooling system.
He pulled himself away from the blur of the spinning blades and rolled to one side as a huge portion of the catwalk smashed into the roof, spitting up sparks and tearing out chunks. He rolled into the foetal position, covering his head as debris rained down around him. Then the ruins of the structure were dragged by its own weight into the depths of the accelerator. The impact was deafening, resounding through the tunnel.
He uncovered his head and looked up, just in time to see Gibbs’ boot come slamming down onto his skull. Caught unawares, he reached up to cushion the impact but the other man’s sole still crunched into his nose and slammed his skull against the metal roof.
He screamed in agony, his vision going blank, his head thundering. Then Gibbs slid his boot down Raine’s face to his throat. He tried to resist but, in his dazed state, his attempt was feeble. Gibbs’ boot pressed into his windpipe, slowly crushing it.
Raine gasped, struggling in vain to suck oxygen into his lungs. He fingers scrabbled at Gibbs’ calve muscle, digging in but Gibbs was beyond pain now, beyond reason.
Raine’s eyes bulged, his face turned purple. Still, the pressure on his throat continued. His vision narrowed to a tunnel, the sounds of destruction around him faded to womb-like silence.
This was the moment of his death, he knew.
Moon Mask Page 63